GI.] 



OF SELBORNE. 



269 



LETTER CI. 



TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. 



A HARE, and I think a new, little bird frequents my garden, 

 which I have great reason to think is the pettichaps : l it is 

 common in some parts of the kingdom ; and I have received 

 formerly several dead specimens from Gibraltar. This bird 

 much resembles the white-throat, but has a more white or silvery 

 breast and belly ; is restless and active, like the willow-wrens, 

 and hops from bough to bough, examining every part for food ; 

 it also runs up the stems of the crown-imperials, and putting its 

 head into the bells of those flowers, sips the liquor which stands 

 in the nectarium of each petal. Sometimes it feeds on the ground, 

 like the hedge-sparrow, hopping about on the grass-plots and 

 mown walks. 



One of my neighbours, an intelligent and observing man, in- 

 forms me, that, in the beginning of May, and about ten minutes 

 before eight o'clock in the evening, he discovered a great cluster 

 of house-swallows, thirty at least, he supposes, perching on a 

 willow that hung over James Knight's upper-pond. His atten- 

 tion was first drawn by the twittering of these birds, which sat 

 motionless in a row on the bough, with their heads all one way, 

 and, by their weight, pressing down the twig so that it nearly 

 touched the water. In this situation he watched them till he 

 could see no longer. Repeated accounts of this sort, in spring 

 and fall, induce me greatly to suspect that house-swallows have 

 some strong attachment to water, independent of the matter of 

 food ; and, though they may not retire into that element, yet 

 they may conceal themselves in the banks of pools and rivers 

 during the uncomfortable months of winter. 



1 Lesser white-throat (Sylvia currtica,, Temm.), and not the pettichaps ; 

 the song is very sweet, and more perfect in its notes than that of the white- 

 throat : it is shy, wary, and even petulant in avoiding intruders. 



